


Sburb “single-player, no godtier, any%” run in 2:44:54 by ASwarmOfBees

by liquidCitrus



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gamebreaking, Gen, SBURB, Speedrunning, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 17:50:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6917242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liquidCitrus/pseuds/liquidCitrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>This is an improvement on HatCollector65’s 2:45:01 “single-player, no godtier, any%” Sburb speedrun. The “no godtier” category was established because some people felt the double-godtiering-for-arbitrary-code-execution glitch was making speedrunning predictable, and also because not all of us have the guts to pull off a suicide-and-ascension in an Immersive Simulation game. (An FPS, fine. A VR game with a helmet, fine! But I draw the line at simulation of visceral sensations.)</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sburb “single-player, no godtier, any%” run in 2:44:54 by ASwarmOfBees

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [SBURBFAN947'S ANY% SBURB V1.1.82.5212 SINGLE-PLAYER SPEEDRUN NOTES](https://archiveofourown.org/works/390379) by [endofunctor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/endofunctor/pseuds/endofunctor). 



> I know it's been four years since the work this is based on, but inspiration is strange and fickle.

This is an improvement on HatCollector65’s 2:45:01 “single-player, no godtier, any%” Sburb speedrun. The “no godtier” category was established because some people felt the double-godtiering-for-arbitrary-code-execution glitch was making speedrunning predictable, and also because not all of us have the guts to pull off a suicide-and-ascension in an Immersive Simulation game. (An FPS, fine. A VR game with a helmet, fine! But I draw the line at simulation of visceral sensations.)

**0:01:15** : As soon as it’s available, I open the Localization menu to switch over to the Chinese translation of Sburb. This saves time in dialogues and cutscenes. This is only a timesave if you’re fluent, though; the time you spend trying to remember the right words usually washes out the difference, unless your first language is Morse code. (The reason I’m posting this overview in English is because all the other speedrunning literature on this game is in English. A machine translation is included in the optional caption overlay.)

**0:03:31** : I was going to use the apartment complex’s rec room for the cruxtruder, totem lathe, and alchemiter; this would mean that I didn’t have to go outside, and therefore wouldn’t trigger the “Weather and Poetry” cutscene. Unfortunately, Sburb has other plans. Namely, a meteor that caves in most of the outer wall and makes it count as “outside” anyway.

**0:05:19** : After waiting patiently as a soothing announcer’s voice explains that today is going to be a very long day, I decide to just use the roof for machine placement, because the roof is closer to my apartment.

**0:07:31** : I prototype a plush frog with a knife stuck through it, because amphibian iconography gets the Derse queen to surrender her Ring after the first two hours of play. This is worth it because this run takes that long to get the Prospit ring anyway. (I tried prototyping a ripped-open frog plush, once, and it resulted in higher-level enemies being surrounded by clouds of poisonous stuffing gas. It’s better to use something you can actually dodge.)

**0:11:31** : I put on a welding mask before alchemizing the Entry Object; this saves frames because the length of the Land cutscene is based on how long your eyes are dazzled by the light of Entry. (Before you ask: no, this doesn’t work for God-Tiering.)

**0:12:04** : And I’m in the Game! I’ve been assigned Prince of Void; while we’re still not sure where the Class part comes from, the Aspect is because my greatest fear is insignificance. Time is still a better speedrunning aspect, but I can make up most of the difference with [Blackout], [And Cut!], and [It Was Unimportant]. Also, Void suits me better anyway.

**0:12:26** : A side-effect of being Void is that my land is in near-total darkness. I fiddle with the color settings as I run; I’m upping the brightness and turning on colorblind mode. Colorblind mode (among other things) highlights plot-relevant objects with a white nimbus; this makes a Land with the “darkness” attribute much easier to navigate, which lets me skip acquiring the Hawk’s Eye.

**0:15:49** : I alchemize a jetpack. An interesting feature of the jetpack is that if I burn my shins, it activates damage invincibility frames. This will become important later.

**0:15:53** : Then I alchemize more equipment for later. A double-handful of smoke bombs, some tanks to keep the Frogs in, trinkets for Consort bribing, that kind of thing.

**0:17:35** : The Cane of Darkness is technically a Horrorterror item, but since this game isn’t going to last long enough for Corruption to build up to meaningful levels, I won’t get anything worse than nightmares. Besides, the damage bonus is useful.

**0:17:40** : Nevertheless, I wrap the handle before putting it in my Specibus. I don’t want to touch it any more than I have to. That black ichor _burns_.

**0:22:09** : Now that that’s done, I set off to complete the Melodia Magnificent questline. Ordinarily, this will grant you a variety of music-related perks such as switchable sound-color synaesthesia and a scrolling melody display; these are supposed to help tone-deaf and tin-eared people complete Sburb. I don’t actually need any of these things, but Melodia Magnificent has another interesting property: Sburb will set your echeladder level to 120, if you are lower than that when you complete the questline. This is because MM was supposed to be a middle-game questline. All it actually requires, though, is some sequence-breaking clipping to get to the point where you can start the quest, and Jake’s Puzzle-Solving Utility (available on sburbspeedrunners.net).

**0:24:23** : Oh, and bribes. Consorts will let you start level-inappropriate quests after a warning if you give them suitable toys.

**0:25:33** : Now that I’ve started the quest, I just have to point Jake’s Puzzle-Solving Utility at the puzzles and key in the answers. Some people say that solving the puzzles yourself builds character. These people are not speedrunners.

**0:29:04** : Quest completed, I skip through a bunch of dialog and collect my spoils. Now I just have to get through another level-inappropriate area to find the Denizen. I spin in circles several times while walking; this is to try to get enemies to despawn when they leave my line-of-sight. It only works on lower-level Underlings, but even that’s enough to save some time.

**0:35:13** : I summon a save/return gate, jump through it, and then immediately return through the gate before it closes. This is to clear status effects; that last basilisk Confused me, and I need all my wits about me for this next step.

**0:37:19** : I make my way to the Denizen’s Lair. I interrupt the Denizen midspeech, say that I’ve got bigger problems, and explain that I’m the only one in this session so it must be infertile. While the session is still completable, due to the single-player mod, the Denizen now double-checks the number of people who are actually in the session. This swaps the Denizen over to the session retrieval dialogue tree, which lets him offer me the Frog even though I’m not a Space player.

**0:39:14** : In exchange, he requests that I do something impossible. For these purposes, the Denizen picks one of four “impossible” quests at random. Two of these are run-killing (“Ring voyage” and “acquire knowledge”), “single combat” is salveageable but difficult, and the last one - “power control” - is what I hope for. Luckily, I manage to get power control.

**0:40:38** : I have to exit and re-enter the Denizen’s lair to trigger the power control scene. I use this time to go back over the most likely challenges and compose an entry for QuestDB.

**0:42:12** : Now that I’m back in the Lair, I say I’m ready and the room depressurizes. I don’t hold my breath; that’s counterproductive. I spend about thirty seconds in hard vacuum before something awakens within me: the ability [Exit Void].

**0:43:39** : The Denizen is impressed, and presents me with the Frog breeding equipment.

**0:46:33** : I summon a save/return node to put myself back at home, lay out the breeding equipment, and make sure all the lids for my frog tanks work.

**0:49:41** : Here’s a trick: Don’t bother searching up and retroactively disturbing the frogs. Just appearify them, stick them in a tank, and then paradoxify them from that tank. Much faster.

**0:55:35** : I have to breed at least three generations of frogs to make the GFrog. This is probably the most tedious part of the run. Unfortunately, without the double-godtier glitch, there isn't yet a way to skip this.

**1:14:19** : While waiting for the frog breeding machine, I bang my jetpack against the wall a few times so it ascends its own echeladder. When it reaches the 4th rung, it gains an autopilot function. I’ll need that later.

**1:21:15** : Frog breeding done, I stash the Genesis Frog in my sylladex and run.

**1:24:43** : I need to fall asleep to get the White Queen’s ring (as well as a few other things), so I lure the Slumbering Giant (the most easily accessible boss with a sleep attack) out of its cave.

**1:28:22** : As soon as it casts the sleep attack, the game realizes it isn’t where it should be and snaps it back to its lair, which is why it won’t kill me in my sleep. If you go frame-by-frame, you can see the Slumbering Giant fading away even as the screen switches over to Prospit. (Waking up on Derse is also run-killing; I’ve already taken care of the Black Queen’s ring, so showing up on Derse wastes a lot of time.)

**1:35:07** : I ask a likely guard for directions to the Queen’s Canteen. This is a “hidden” restaurant that you need to ask for by name for it to exist. It can only exist on one dream moon per session, but since this is single-player that isn’t a concern.

**1:37:38** : While this place is called the Queen’s Canteen, it doesn’t actually have the Queen in it. Its most notable feature is that it allows you to ask for favors that you’d usually need high Prospit rep to request. I’ll need a sheet of Medium astronomical predictions (deliverable to my waking self’s chumhandle) so I know where the ectobiology meteor is, and I’ll need to see the Queen.

**1:44:19** : These things acquired, I’m escorted into the Queen’s castle. Even though I’m speedrunning, this part can’t proceed at more than a walk or otherwise the guards will think I’m trying to escape them. This is because Royal Guards are derived from the code for the Golden Guards, who run the Prospit jail.

**1:49:42** : I tell the Queen that I have already bred the Genesis frog, and then ask her politely for the Ring. She refuses.

**1:49:51** : I turn away, turn back towards the Queen, and ask the same question again. I then repeat this for the next several minutes. This is to cycle through the RNG until I get the 1/256 chance that this will succeed at base rep. While most carapaces have a Frustration meter that will kick you out of dialogue if you repeat the same thing too many times, the Queen doesn’t have one, presumably to prevent sessions from being stuck in an unwinnable condition due to being unable to petition the Queen. So I can continue asking the same question until I decide to give up. As long as this succeeds in less than 100 attempts, the run’s still on track; if you check my right middle finger you’ll see that I’m using a card-counting ring to keep track of the tries.

**1:57:16** : Having acquired the Ring after asking the Queen fifty-nine times, I promise to keep it safe and to win. Then I request that she put me to sleep; because of the ring translocation glitch, I am still holding her ring when I wake up.

**1:59:00** : I need to run some errands before I go fight the Black King. Having acquired the Medium astronomical prediction sheet, I pick out the right column of numbers and do a bit of number-crunching to plot a flight path.

**2:01:29** : Then I load the flight path into my modded jetpack and let it autopilot me through a few places.

**2:04:07** : I don’t technically need to be standing at the ectobiology machines to activate them. I can just mash the buttons with my hands and feet as I fly through. Of course, to fly through, I have to punch at least one hole through the ceiling.

**2:04:29** : I then exit through the same hole in the ceiling. No sense in wasting a perfectly good hole.

**2:15:51** : I then swing by Derse, where I need to get to the Queen’s Royal Vault to acquire the Derse queen’s ring. Because I have all this built-up speed, I clip right through this corner of the Southern Spire. Then I have to brake so I don’t go through the far wall too.

**2:16:53** : Jetpack kicks back in again; I’m going to have to do one more clip, and this corridor will allow me to build up enough speed for that. I have to make several tight turns, but that’s what tool assistance is for.

**2:18:14** : Having broken into the Queen’s quarters, I cut the power on the jetpack and open the Royal Vault. (She keeps the passcode on a sticky-note under her desk.) While I’m reaching in for the ring, I summon a save/return gate, so I can jump through as soon as I’ve got the ring. Luckily, this time, the guards don’t burst in until after I’ve already left the premises, and the only things that manage to make it through the gate as it closes are a few arrows and a thrown sword.

**2:18:31** : Don’t trust anyone who tells you that an arrow is just an annoyance. These things can be deadly. Luckily, I only get grazed, and so I hit the button to activate the second half of my flight path.

**2:21:14** : Here’s why I wanted the jetpack, rather than the rocketboots or rocketwings. I give myself shin burn, then use the invincibility frames to stick my arm into the Forge. Usually, you’re supposed to toss the rings into the lava and then stand back as they slowly sink. Touching the lava is an insta-kill... unless you’re temporarily invincible. Since my arm is faster than the speed at which rings sink into lava, this means that I can save frames by putting the rings closer to the activation depth.

**2:22:31** : This is a trick I picked up from Cicada17 - you don’t necessarily have to eat the Squishy Succulent to be healed by it. Here I break it open and slather it on the burns. I’m still on autopilot, so I’m not losing frames here. Also, I need to be able to walk for the Black King part.

**2:26:00** : Errands done, my jetpack cuts out right over the Battlefield, and I fall.

**2:27:02** : I stick a three-point landing to startle nearby Dersites; the Dynamic Entry initiative bonus lets me abscond before they can react.

**2:30:18** : The first few minutes of this battle are just me trying to make progress on foot. Ordinarily, these would be trivially simple mooks; but I’m underleveled, and it’s only the Cane of Darkness that lets me do enough damage. I’m nimble enough, though, and while I’m not nearly as good at taking damage to save time as HatCollecter65 is, I still make it to the King in a respectable amount of time.

**2:32:40** : This cutscene is supposed to pan over your team and then up at the King; since there’s only one person on my team, though, the camera gets stuck and I have to pinch myself to exit the cutscene.

**2:34:04** : I need to spam the abilities [Anything Else?] and [Cutscene] just to get through the first phase of the Black King; those knife-beams are annoying.

**2:35:21** : Because I haven’t godtiered, there is a midfight cutscene where the King berates me for not achieving my full potential. I wave him off and try not to let the words get to me. They’re just programmed in, after all. Just programmed in.

**2:36:45** : And here he comes out swinging. Canekind is one of the specibuses that allows you to hit attacks back at the attacker, though it doesn’t have as much of a chance of doing so as batkind does; I make full use of this. (There is, unfortunately, no cheap batkind weapon of comparable power to the Cane of Darkness, or I would be using that instead.)

**2:38:12** : I make a mistake here and get caught by a scepter-sweep, but I manage a midair jetpack recovery.

**2:39:36** : Energy spheres are unusually easy to hit back, and the King relies on them more as the fight wears on; things are moving at a pretty good pace now.

**2:41:30** : And here the Battlefield begins to crumble as the King hits one-third health; the islands of ground that rise into the air are more useful as cover for me than they are for him, since I have maneuverability he doesn’t have. I think this is supposed to catch players by surprise, but this isn’t my first rodeo. Or my fiftieth, for that matter.

**2:43:25** : The pawns are trying to suicide-rush me now; that means I’m almost there. Just a few more hits left.

**2:44:28** : The King relinquishes his scepter and bows for the killing blow. I’ve come this far already, so I oblige him.

**2:44:54** : Aaaaaand here’s the ending cutscene, which is to say the Genesis Frog’s magical girl transformation sequence. After this follows the credits. Note that I can still technically use [And Cut!] to interrupt the credits, because for some reason I don’t lose access to that ability until the game properly ends. I don’t because the sburbtas.org rules require that I leave them on.

This is going to be my last run for a good while; I’m going to have to chase Skaianet down for property damage, again. If anyone’s got speedrunning strats for their claim-form process, I’d be much obliged.


End file.
